


Cell Phones, Three AM, and Ugly Sweaters

by indevan



Series: Barbarian Invasions: a Modern Inda AU [1]
Category: Inda series - Sherwood Smith
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-01
Updated: 2013-03-01
Packaged: 2017-12-04 00:05:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,074
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/704200
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/indevan/pseuds/indevan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It was sometimes said that the truest, most intimate moments happen at three in the morning.  Actually, no one to record has said that as far as Evred knows but maybe this time, he'll be in luck.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cell Phones, Three AM, and Ugly Sweaters

**Author's Note:**

> The first story of a Modern AU Inda universe that is mostly comical and hopefully not quite as heartbreaking.

Evred hadn’t been aware that he had changed his phone’s ringtone.  In fact, had he to guess, he would figure that someone had been fiddling around with his phone and changed the tone and volume just to aggravate him.  He had a fairly good idea who it was, but that was neither here nor there.  What was, in fact, both here and there was the fact that he was awoken quite suddenly to the sound of “Gay Bar” cranked to pain pitch screeching from his phone’s small speaker.  Groggily, he groped at his nightstand until he grabbed the shrieking, vibrating device and slid the bar over to unlock it and answer without even checking his caller ID.

“Hello?” he mumbled into the mouthpiece.

“Sponge?”

His head was still sleep-clogged and his ears were ringing from the aural assault of Electric Six and he wasn’t quite sure who was on the other end or why they were using his childhood nickname.

“Sponge?” the voice repeated. “Are you there?”

A bulb flipped on somewhere in the back of his head and the voice and its owner became clear to him.

“Inda, hi.” He still sounded sleepy but he sat up in bed and switched the phone to his other ear.

“I’m sorry I’m calling so...huh, is it early or late?  I guess both--anyway, I just...um...is there anyway you can come meet me somewhere?”

Evred knew that he should say no.  Logically, it made no sense.  It was the dead of winter and the middle of the night.  He would be foolish to go outside, even for Inda.  However, he knew that logic was never present when it came to him.  Inda could ask him if he wanted to go sort tin cans with him for six hours and he would gladly agree.

“Sure,” he replied. “Where do you wanna go?”

There was a soft chuckle on the other end.

“What’s open at three AM?”

“We can go to the park,” Evred suggested.

“Oh, right, huh?  Okay...um...I’ll be outside your apartment in about fifteen--is that okay?”

“Yeah, sure, of course.”

They said their good-byes (hasty “see you laters” that would be fulfilled in only a few minutes) and Evred hung up, feeling foolish.  He changed into the clothes he had worn that day, even making sure to tuck the tails of his shirt into his trousers before slipping the suspenders back over his shoulders.  He didn’t bother with the tie he had worn, though, instead just fastening on one of his old clip-on bowties he hadn’t touched in years.  His fingers were far too clumsy to work the real thing.  He pulled his usual cap over his sleep-disheveled hair and went to finding a suitable pair of shoes.  Usually he just wore canvas high tops but the grommets in them did not make a good combination with winter winds.  He located a pair of snow boots and figured that they would do.  He slipped on his coat, buttoning the high collar to the side, which both kept his neck warm (making him not have to wear a scarf) and also showed off the little bowtie that was on the coat’s collar.

Evred realized as he was jamming his keys in his pocket and slipping on wool gloves that he was done getting ready in far less time than fifteen minutes.  He didn’t want to wait outside and then make Inda feel bad for making him wait.  He opted to just linger in the apartment’s small kitchen, staring at the Judas Priest poster Fox hung up over the fridge.  Evred wasn’t officially living in the apartment yet.  Not really.  He had just moved out of his parents’ house a couple weeks ago.  His cousin Barend, though, had graciously given him a place to sleep until he got a  better-paying job than being a TA and so gave him the futon on the apartment he shared with his friend and sometimes boyfriend, Fox.  Currently, they seemed to be back together, which was why Evred got Barend’s old room instead of sleeping on the uncomfortable futon.

He decided he’d waited long enough and went on downstairs anyway.  Luckily, he timed it just right and Inda was just arriving at his building.  As usual, he wore his dad’s army jacket from Vietnam open over one of his deeply hideous sweaters that he found so enjoyable in an unabashed, unembarrassed way.  Tonight’s depicted what seemed to be geometric vomit in shades of brown, green, and orange.

“Hey!” Inda greeted him with a breathy laugh.  His breath puffed out visibly in the bitter cold, still night air. “I’m glad you...does your coat have a bowtie?”

Evred felt his face heat up--which was at odds with the chilled air--and bit the side of his lip.

“Uh...yes.  Yes it does.”

Inda smiled and said, “I’m so glad!”

He fought back a smile in return--awkwardly, jerking his lips apart and scraping the sensitive skin against the ridges of his teeth--and shoved his hands into the pockets of his coat.

“So, um, what did you want to talk about?”

Inda jerked his chin in the general direction of the park and they began walking.

“Sorry to wake you up,” he said.  His foot kicked a chunk of snow on the ground.

It hadn’t snowed in days but dirty, slushy clumps of it still congealed on the sidewalk or melted into a slick, dangerous slurry on the street.

“It’s fine,” he assured him. “What’s up?”

He shrugged his shoulders and said, “Nightmares.”

Evred didn’t have to ask him to elaborate.  Something had happened to him that led him to drop out of college last semester.  No one knew what it was and no one wanted to press him since Inda never wanted to talk about it.

“Do you want to talk about it?” he asked anyway, again feeling his face heat up.  If his temperature kept fluctuating like this, he was going to give himself a head cold.

He shook his head.

“No.  Not...really.  I just wanted some company.”

His heart soared despite everything.  Inda needed company and he chose to call him.

“Tau’s at his mom’s and apparently the Dairy Queen is going twenty-four hours so Jeje’s working all night.”

His heart faltered but didn’t quite get shot down.  His was a clay pigeon: free and fast out of the gate but now just sailing to the ground.  He was maybe mixing metaphors.

“But...I wanted to spend time with you, too.”

He gave him a smile and Evred’s heart did that soaring business again.

“Thanks...I mean--” What did he mean?  What could he say to that? “Oh, look, the park.”

They entered together, walking side by side and not saying anything.  Inda hummed a little under his breath, eyes bright.  Evred shuffled, shoulders hunched.  He wished that they were boyfriends.  That he could reach out and take his hand in his to comfort him.  Kiss over his knuckles.  Hold him tightly and assure him that whatever happened to him would never happen again--not while he was around.  But he and Inda weren’t dating and they likely were never going to.  Evred just needed to finally get past that and go on being his friend.  It was easier that way.

The two of them passed a bench and Inda sank onto it.  He took Evred’s hand and tugged him down next to him.  He noticed then that Inda wasn’t even wearing gloves.  Evred stretched his long legs in front of him and tried to pretend that Inda wasn’t still holding his hand in both of his.

“Hey, Sponge...”

“Yeh?” He cleared his throat and tried again. “Yes?”

“How do you decide how to get into a relationship?  I mean I guess...well, how did you first know you were into guys?”

His face felt on fire.  Inda was still holding his hand.

“It...uh...took me a long time to shop for underwear,” he said with slight unease.

He laughed, lifting one hand to cover his mouth.  The other one was still resting under Evred’s palm.

“What?”

Evred cleared his throat again and looked up at the stars--not that he could see many in the city smog.

“Well, when I would go clothes shopping, it would take me upwards to fifteen minutes to pick out underwear and I finally realized that it was because I was staring at the men on the packages.”

Inda laughed again and shook his head.

“Seriously?”

Evred shrugged.

“Seriously.  I guess...being gay was never really an issue for me.  I mean, the attraction part.  My dad’s gay and so when I told him, it’s not like there was any...drama.”

He nodded at his words.  Evred didn’t say that the only painful part was being in love with your best friend when they didn’t love you back.  He would never say that--assholes said that.  He didn’t want to make Inda uncomfortable or, worse, ruin their friendship.  If Inda didn’t love him back then Evred would at least savor the fact that they were friends.

“I was just...thinking.  I talked to Tau the other day.” A devious look crossed his face. “What happened between you two anyway?”

Fire.  His face was ablaze.

“Oh...uh...”

Inda kept on smiling deviously.

“It’s okay, Sponge--you don’t have to tell me.” Something told him, though, that he already knew.  Perhaps Tau told him since the blond was often very frank about his sexual liaisons. “Anyway, I was talking to Tau about attraction...sexuality...and...I realized something.”

Evred wondered what this had to do with nightmares but, then again, Inda hadn’t wanted to talk about that.

“Realized what?”

He shifted on the bench and slipped his hand out from under Evred’s as if just noticing that it was there.

“I think...for me, that I can be with someone if I care about them.  And if they care about me.  Regardless of...anything else.  As long as I can trust them.  Deeply trust them.”

He tossed Evred a lopsided grin.  Evred swallowed thickly.

“Like?”

Inda stretched his legs out in front of them and they didn’t reach the same distance splayed over the frozen sidewalk that Evred’s did.  Inda’s legs were thicker, though.  Stronger.  They weren’t spindly swizzle-sticks like Evred’s.

“Well, Tdor.”

“You’d have to fight Shen, then.”

He laughed and nodded. “Oh, yeah.  But I mean...I’ve known her my whole life.  I trust her.  Tau, maybe, and...you.”

His heart hammered in his chest and his face was likely to just burn off.  Evred’s hand nervously snaked up to play with the bill of his cap.

“Me?”

Inda nodded and, for the first time, Evred noticed that his cheeks were bright red.  He thought it was perhaps the cold but there was nervousness and embarrassment etched onto his face.  Inda was no good at hiding his emotions.  Not really.  His thoughts and experiences, yes, but not his emotions.

“You’re...the first person I turn to when I need help,” he explained. “The person who’s willing to get up at three in the morning and talk to me...I...really...like you, Sponge.  Um...is there maybe a chance you like me back?”

He nearly laughed.  His infatuation with Inda was obvious to everyone but him.  Instead he just nodded numbly.

“Yes.  I mean, I do.  I do like you back.”

Evred felt as though they were in middle school or high school--not post-adolescents eking out their early twenties.  Inda’s smile, though, made that feeling go away.  Instead, he was just filled with warmth.

“Really?”

He nodded again. “Really.”

Inda rested his head on his shoulder, slowly and tentatively.  Just as tentatively, Evred rested the side of his head over top of his, breathing in measured breaths.  This was happening.

“Hey,” Inda said after a moment, playing with a stray thread on the sleeve of his sweater. “Do you want to go somewhere?  I know a Dairy Queen that’s open.”

Evred wanted to stay on that bench for eternity but he nodded anyway.

“Sure.”

They rose to their feet and walked back towards the entrance to the park.  At the archway, Inda’s hand snuck out to hold his.  Evred felt a jolt of warmth and smiled.  Maybe, he decided, he would have to thank whoever it was that changed the volume on his phone.


End file.
